“YARD-ARM TO YARD-ARM”
On the “Richard,” two of the eighteen-pounders burst at this first broadside, killing their crews, heaving up the deck above, and driving the men from the upper tier. The others cracked and were useless. In this terrible situation Paul Jones knew the chances for victory were against him, for he had thought his lower battery his mainstay in a broadside fight.
But if he felt daunted his men did not know it, for, amid the hurricane of fire and roar of the guns, his ringing voice, forward, aft, everywhere, told them that victory was still theirs for the gaining. He ordered all of the men from the useless battery to the main deck; and it was well he did so,—for so terrific was the fire that the six ports of the “Bonhomme Richard” were blown into one, and the shot passed clear through the ship, cutting away all but the supports of the deck above. No one but the marines guarding the powder-monkeys were left there, but they stood firm at their posts while the balls came whistling through and dropped into the sea beyond. But the fire of Paul Jones’s battery did not slacken for a moment. There seemed to be two men to take the place of every man who was killed, and he swept the crowded deck of the “Serapis” from cathead to gallery.
In the meanwhile, the “Serapis,” having the wind of the “Richard,” drew ahead, and Pearson hauled his sheets to run across and rake Jones’s bows. But he miscalculated, and the American ran her boom over the stern of the Englishman. For a moment neither ship could fire at the other, and they hung together in silence, fast locked in a deadly embrace. Jones’s crew, eager to renew the battle, glared forward at the shimmering battle-lanterns of the Englishman, cursing because their guns would not bear. The smoke lifted, and Paul Jones, who was deftly training one of his guns at the main-mast of the “Serapis,” saw Pearson slowly climb up on the rail. The silence had deceived the Englishman, and his voice came clearly across the deck,—
“Have you struck?”
A harsh laugh broke from the “Richard.”
“Struck!” Paul Jones’s answer came in a roar that was heard from truck to keelson. “I haven’t begun to fight yet!”
A cheer went up that drowned the rattle of the musketry from the tops, and the fight went on. Swinging around again the jib-boom of the “Serapis” came over the poop so that Paul Jones could touch it. Rushing to the mast, he seized a hawser, and quickly taking several turns with it, lashed the bowsprit of his enemy to his mizzen-rigging. Grappling-irons were dropped over on the enemy—and the battle became a battle to the death.
“Well done, lads; we’ve got her now.” And Jones turned to his nine-pounders, which renewed their fire. Both crews fought with the fury of desperation. The men at the guns, stripped to the buff, grimed and blackened with powder, worked with extraordinary quickness. Every shot told. But the fire of the “Serapis” was deadly, and she soon silenced every gun but Jones’s two nine-pounders, which he still worked with dogged perseverance. He sent Dale below to hurry up the powder charges. To his horror Dale found that the master-at-arms, knowing the ship to be sinking, had released a hundred English prisoners. The situation was terrifying. With foes within and without, there seemed no hope. But Dale, with ready wit, ordered the prisoners to the pumps and to fight the fire near the magazine, telling them that their only hope of life lay in that. And at it they went, until they dropped of sheer exhaustion.